Charity worker tells oflife in world's war zones

Working in war zones around the world gave author Anne Watts a very clear idea of what conflict really meant.

“It’s not about heroes and medals and marching bands. It’s messy and bloody and chaotic. Mistakes are made and lives are lost – that’s as true today as during the First World War,” she told the audience at the first Yorkshire Post Literary Lunch of the 2010-11 season yesterday.

Born in 1940, Ms Watts trained as a nurse and midwife. She joined Save the Children and was thrown in at the deep end with a posting to Vietnam in 1967.

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Her book, Always the Children, tells of life in places such as Thailand, Cambodia, the Lebanon and Saudi Arabia during Desert Storm.

Also speaking at the lunch, at Pavilions of Harrogate, was Richard Taylor. The Sheffield-based lawyer-turned-writer and presenter of the BBC4 TV series based on his book, How to Read a Church, said he became fascinated by the buildings as the focus of so many key events.

“We pledge commitment in them, we welcome new lives in them, we say goodbye in them,” he said.

The third speaker was Janie Hampton, author of How the Girl Guides Won the War.

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Steeped in the Brownie movement since childhood – her mother was a Brown Owl – she left the Girl Guides thinking they were a bit dull. Over time, however, she realised what a huge role they’d played in history around the world.

“They were the forerunners of feminism,” she told the audience.